Poetry has been around for nearly five millennia, yet never has it been more puzzling. Technology, social media, and the blinding pace of contemporary life leave many students and readers in the dark. Just in time, this book comes to the rescue not just with a response to the problem of understanding and enjoying poetry, but it offers a solution.…

While conventional critics seek the comic aspect of parody, modernist critics credit parody with questioning mainstream literary trends and subverting literary production. For instance, Mikhail Bakhtin believes in parody's power to create "a decrowning double" by turning the official worldview up-side-down. For experimental poets like…

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Homer's Iliad are among the first literary masterpieces of Iran and Greece. These teachings include the educational teachings of Zal and Roudabeh, and Paris and Helen. This paper presents a comparative look at the immortal effect of this Iranian poet with Homer's poem--the Greek blind poet. In this comparison, using a…

Although Khayyam is one of the Persian poets whose school of thought and poems are studied the most, there is hardly a research in which his intellectual system is explained and made clear via a linguistic framework. In this paper one of the most debatable matters which is "Obligation" versus "Free Will" is dealt with by using…

Looking through the eyes of Persian culture, we see that man is not all noetic; he is not driven by intellect or consistent in his use of reason. On the contrary, he is most moved by emotion. A perfect example: Persian philosophy is most commonly uttered in both poetry and prose. This is, I believe, where the brilliance of Persians rests, in the…

In the fifteen years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America, countless literary and artistic works have responded to the incident. This paper examines Amiri Baraka's literary response to this violent event through his most famous poem entitled "Somebody blew up America," which defies American orthodox responses to the attacks. The…

Black American Literature is a microcosm of the history of the black people's presence on the American continent as it is known today. The literature of the Black Americans cannot be fully separated from the experience of Slavery and Racism which characterized their lives as a community of people whose social, economic and political privileges are…

Inspired by an experience of teaching the drafts of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art", this article rereads the drafts as far more than imperfect precursors to the final poem. The drafts have their own prosodic features and poetic logic, one that values and enacts a vertiginous dilation of thought, expression and memory. The final version of…

This paper considers the range of ways that sign languages use geometric symmetry temporally and spatially to create poetic effect. Poets use this symmetry in sign language art to highlight duality and thematic contrast, and to create symbolic representations of beauty, order and harmony. (Contains 8 tables, 14 figures and 6 notes.)

The person and poetry of Walt Whitman are discussed. Excerpts from his poems are included. (RM)

Discusses H.D.'s influence on Adrienne Rich in the context of Rich's vision of female literary tradition as a "family" model of influence in which mothers and daughters, represented by past and present authors, seek to transcend the divisive attitudes of patriarchy (in contrast to Bloom's theory of literary, oedipal rivalry). (ML)

An exploration of the assumptions underlying current literary experiments might help both teacher and student to find a perspective from which the past may be viewed. (Author/MB)